Tuesday, March 1, 2016

1d124 OSR-Style Challenges

I while ago I put out the call on G+ for some OSR-style challenges. These are obstacles that meet the following requirements:

No obvious solution. (Straight combat is always obvious.)

Many possible solutions.

Solvable via common sense (as opposed to system mastery).

No special tools required (no unique spells, no plot McGuffins at the bottom of a dungeon).

Not solvable by a specific class or ability.

These have a lot in common with lateral thinking and thinking outside the box. They usually require some off-label solution (something not printed on your character sheet) and therefor benefit from a ruleset that supports rulings (as well as rules), which is why I consider them OSR-style problems, although there is nothing that really limits these types of problems to OSR games.

I originally just imagined dungeon-type situations, but a lot of the suggestions involved social and moral challenges. Overlap exists.

All of these are open for your usage, so steal away. Credit for ideas at the bottom of the post.

There's a circle of mushrooms with a girl inside it. Everything inside the circle of mushrooms will do everything in their power to get more people inside the circle (no save). The girl is already their thrall.

There's a tiny octopus inside your stomach and it's biting you.

The bad guy cannot be hurt by any weapon forged by mortal hands.

This glass sphere (3' in diameter) is filled with gems and horrible undead snakes.

The party needs to climb this wall.
There's a field of unconsciousness halfway up. Anyone who climbs
through it passes out, and then revives fully healthy as soon as they
leave it.

Carbuncle turtle. You need to pop the
gem out of its forehead, but the turtle clams up as soon as it sees
you. If it ever takes even a single point of damage, the gem
crumbles into worthlessness.﻿

This good cultist sacrifices a virgin
every full moon to assuage the Demon in the Pewling Pit. Stopping the
sacrifices will unleash the Demon's fury on the nearby town of
Wattledaub. (does this count?)

The cowardly, but good, headman of
Village A asks the party to stop the headstrong, but good, headman of
Village B from raising a righteous revolt against the tyranny of the
Knight of the Black Mace, because the Knight would probably just
massacre all the villagers of A and B with his legion.﻿

This treasure chest only opens when it
falls at least 1000' vertical. Alternatively, a strong giant could
hammer it open or something. Contains a mattock of titans.﻿

This chest only opens when it is inside
a stomach. Inside is a livingstonetree nut.﻿

An enemy wizard is immortal because she
magically obliterated the possibility of her ever actually dying.﻿

The only person, who could teach you
the spell you want, was turned to stone by a curse 200 years ago. The
only way to break the curse is a kiss by his/her true love. Who died
180 years ago.﻿

The room is proofed against magic. The
door only opens when a bowl is filled with water from a spring down
the hall. The hall is long, vented to volcanic heat, so the water
will evaporate before reaching the bowl.﻿

In the Chamber of the Turtle every turn
you can move only half as far as you moved the last turn.﻿

The shadow-creature beckons to you from
the other side of the mirror. When you peer in from the left or right
you can see extra rooms, doors, people. This room/dungeon is
otherwise a dead-end and you have not yet found the artifact for
which you search.﻿

The door only opens when sunlight
shines on it, even a tiny amount. The door is on the second floor of
the dungeon. Maybe try mirrors?﻿

Visible key on the bottom of an acid
lake.﻿

The sage stone only awakens when it
hears the call of a paralophasaur, who have been extinct a long time.
Blowing on the skull might work, if you have a skull. An imitation
learned from someone who has heard one before might work. Time travel
might work. Druids have ways of reviving dead species.﻿

A second Ancient Evil/Dark Lord offers
PCs their aid in destroying another... but this will leave their new
'ally' in a far stronger position.﻿

There is a shrine full of murdered
monks on the side of the road, just tucked back into the woods a
little bit. In the back of a shrine is normal cat, locked in a cage.
One monk still clinging to life tells the pcs that the cat is
actually a terrible monster/demon/whatever but it was cursed. If
cared for like a kitty king, it will die in 3d4 years of natural
causes. If left uncared for, it will change back into a demon. Do they take the cat? Leave it? And who
was just here killing all the monks anyway?

The honorable orc clans and the
alcoholic hill giants are meeting to discuss a truce. IT MUST NOT
HAPPEN.

Ogruk the Flatulant, a hill giant
bandit, is known to wear a paralophasaur skull around his nethers.
His pet dire honey badgers, Cruncher and Humpy, will run away in fear
when air is forcefully and repeatedly propelled through the skull
(because they have learnt their lessons). However, blowing air
through the skull requires an escalating series of saves to avoid
collapsing with nausea (the vile stinkyness is "baked" in
hard). If this happens the little bastards will rip the hapless and
vomiting player to bits. Companions can carry nauseous comrades
away, but they will also have to carry the skull as Cruncher and
Humpy will not abandon it within sight of Ogruk's corpse. The corpse
will quickly decompose and, eventually, explode attracting 1d8 + 2
other dire honey badgers whereupon a frenzied and viscous fight for
dominance and mating rights will begin, ending when only 1
disappointed and confused dire honey badger remains. It will then
lurk in the vicinity of the skull and attempt to mate with any living
thing that passes within sight. The likely outcome is death from
significant blood loss.﻿

You have to cross a mud flat to reach
<your goal> before <your opposition> does. You have no
boats or rafts, and no clue when the flood is coming in.﻿

Morlock books ignite when exposed to
light. You must find a way to read them. Darkvision is insufficient.
Possible solutions include true seeing, exploiting differences
between the ink and the paper (specific heat, adhesion to another
dye), transmutation into a more stable material, or the painstaking
and risky process of just sitting in a dark room, feeling the letters
on the page.﻿

A porcelain sculpture, 20 beautiful
angels all supporting each other atop a a pinhead 20 feet on the air.
(Like the brige in Shadow of the Colossus, or that thing where 20
people sit in each other's laps, in a circle). Could be solved with
immovable rods, covering the floor with trapeze artist nets, or just
a lot of carpentry to build supports.﻿

The ice bridge is rebuilt by the
ice-tilter every evening. Every night it is covered with sticky super
spider cemen(t). Every day it melts.﻿

A long underwater tunnel. Level one
solution: pig bladders full of air.﻿

Two titans are blocking and important
path with an immense, esoteric game of strategy. They say you can
pass once the game is done. The second titan has been deliberating
their third turn for 79 years.﻿

A giant glyptodon guzzles gasoline in
the ghostly glen, claims it is the firewater and wants more to let
you pass.﻿

A witch has is the only person with
access to important/valuable knowledge. While generally reasonable
and willing to negotiate, everything she truly values is terrible (or
icky at best).﻿

Treasure is guarded by a huge,
ferocious, and narcoleptic monster. It sleeps pretty soundly, but not
that soundly.﻿

Followers of a niche cult are sincere,
good, and upstanding, but their god is a mindless automaton with a
chance of going berserk and murdering everything it can find.﻿

There's an enormous gem in a volcano
temple. Removing it will make the volcano erupt. There's a pleasant
town with famous hot sprints on the slopes of the volcano.﻿

A richly decorated temple, absolutely
opulent. Just encrusted in gems, gold, statues, and other highly
valuable things. But practically zero mobile wealth. And the temple
is in regular, active use.﻿

A richly decorated temple, absolutely
opulent. Just encrusted in rhinestone, foil, replica statues, and
other beautiful but not very valuable things. The temple opens a
portal hole to the Philosophical Egg of Croesus when a True Priest of
the Rich Hegemon makes the proper sacrifice. The temple is abandoned
as all the True Believers of the Ascenscion of the Self Through
Labour and Artifice were slaughtered in the Deathcult Crusades
two-hundred and two-score years ago. For some reason, the temple has
not decayed since.﻿

There is a ghost pumpkin, it is so
small and cute and sad. SO SAD﻿

What can change the nature of a man? Is
it drugs? It's drugs. ﻿

The gate to the diamond room of
diamonds is closed by diamond ghosts when intruders approach. They
are blind themselves but can see through the eye of any non-sentient
animal within 2 kilometers that is fly-sized or bigger.﻿

The beast's hide is impervious to all
weapons, including magical ones.﻿

One thousand ultrarare jewels that
self-annihilate if they touch another jewel.﻿

The monster automatically copies (no
save) every spell in nearby casters' minds, and will cast them as
soon as possible.﻿

The door's pneumatic workings run on
saltwater. (Use the salt from preserved meats? Teleport to the sea?
Use tears?)﻿

This dude! He cannot be hurt! And he
has ALL THE STUFF YOU WANT BUT he can be hurt but no weapon that has
not struck a death blow by the hand , fin or paw of a dumb beast﻿

Gold dust is mixed in with flour or
corn or something - lots of it. The total amount of gold is actually
pretty high, but nobody will take it mixed with other stuff.﻿

Speaking of flour, part of the dungeon
is the hobgoblins' mill - the air of it and several rooms around it
are filled with flour dust, making open flame extremely dangerous. No
problem for the hobgoblins, who use darkvision anyway.

The treasure is large, cumbersome, and
edible (like big wheels of cheese or outsized mushrooms or slabs of
rare mammoth meat), and the place is infested with things that eat
that treasure (mold, rats, hyenas, whatever - preferably small and
numerous enough that if the party tries to just stab every one
individually, they'll have a bad time).﻿

The ogre tribe is ready to let you pass
their teritory. But only if you leave one party member behind for
dinner.

The treasure is a new cultivar of
potato, resistant to the Seven Blights of the Lean Cows.﻿

Magic tomato seeds that send a tomato
stalk up to the top of the magic mountain.﻿

The Prophet of Vision: Has true sight
(e.g. can see invisible, etc.) and has power over everything she can
see. Is guarding something important. (So like... can only be hurt
by stuff she can't see)﻿

The medusa has retreated to a room
where she keeps SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS MONSTERS she has petrified. Kill
her, and they will all come to life. But you can only get THAT THING
YOU NEED if she is out of the way.﻿

The Tomb of Time: In these cursed
tunnels, anything, or any external part of a thing, that moves faster
than like a snail ages at a massively accelerated rate. Put simple,
innocuous hazards like a 3m chasm or a muddy, steepish riverbank in
there. Add gelatinous-cube like things, or timeless, magical beasts.
Swinging a sword a few times means your arm emaciates etc. Also
don't blink.﻿

Low ceiling'd cave, large pool of lava.
Treasure is on the other side. Lava too hot, ceiling too low to
climb over. Ropes, organic stuff, catch fire when close to lava for
too long. Adding sufficient water to solidify the lava creates
enough steam to liquify the people. Lava is sucky and sticky - even
resist fire types likely to get stuck/drown.﻿

Any damage done to your evil double is
doubly done to you. But the double has a tiny octopus in its stomach
that is eating away at its insides. Your double cries in agony using
your voice and prepares to throw itself in the sea to escape the
pain.﻿

Halls of Forfeit: Each door requires
the sacrifice of a living humanoid eye, hand, or tongue to open. Each
door has a little grate so you can see what's on the other side. Each
door automatically closes after 3 rounds.﻿

The Silent Grotto: The water and rocks
here are arranged in beautiful, noneuclidean arrays. Any sound will
cause reverberations that will destabilise, liquify or disinitegrate
the source of the sound. Louder sounds are more likely to destroy
themselves, tiny sounds may only cause mild damage.﻿

There is a sword in a stone that only
the true king can draw, OH WAIT that whole family died because of an
asshole vizier.﻿

Cross a moat filled with crocodiles.

Symphony of Limbs: In a secluded
chamber, The limbs of three hundred creatures play a haunting
symphony on makeshift instruments of stone and bone. On a nearby
throne, the Worm King schemes, writhing to the music. Anything
hearing the songs will have their limbs slowly turn on them, one at a
time. Enchanted limbs will do what they can, including separating
themselves, to join the choir of limbs. Excess limbs in the chamber
will defend from incursions, attempting to remove earmuffs and plugs
and such, grabbing, tearing, bludgeoning...﻿

Mute room - no noise works in this
room. Among other effects, characters (and their players) can't talk.
Throw in a fight or a countdown of some kind so that they can't just
take as long as they want writing conversations. And maybe something
that they've gotten used to solving with a common spell.﻿

Important Quest Treasure was created in
aeons past, before humanoids crawled from the dreams of animals, when
Bears were Kings. Treasure can only be carried by a Bear. Bears want
to keep the thing.﻿

Mud god. Stats as a level 3 fighter,
can only be permanently killed by things that would kill a god.
Everything he touches turns to soft, wet mud, eventually spreading to
any wagon that he rides in. Bring him 200 miles to the king, who
desires an exotic execution for his unfaithful, lowborn wife. The mud
god is scared of fire.﻿

Only under the full moon, at midnight,
will the Ghost of the Pheasant Queen of Charmingwood appear. In the
ages since her life, the woods have grown older, and the stains of
man and death have left their mark. At night, ten thousand undead
sparrows hop, stalk, and wing through the woods. They do not accept
the living in their wood, and they cannot be easily fought. They flee
only natural sunlight, and will locate anything in the open in D100
seconds.﻿

A tinderwisp knows the secret to the
thing, and must be taken to it. She is captive in a deep, dark place,
locked in a crate. Any nearby fire will turn her to ash and smoke,
dead, to be reborn in another age. Any nearby magic will release her
to the winds and leylines, and she will be lost. (If fire or magic
gets close, roll 1D100 - if the roll is > than the distance in
yards, she is lost)﻿.

The Akashic Stone: A simple stone,
wrought from the fabric of time. Any who speak in its presence lose
their memory, and will likely go mad. It is in a distant, dangerous
place. A sage needs it to answer some question about something
important for your quest.﻿

Curse Of Terror: Develop a phobia of
the next thing you touch, or are currently touching.﻿

Harlequin's curse: Anything solidish
(soup, but not beer) that you put in your closed mouth becomes a tiny
jester or harlequin of similar size, and it is in the middle of a
performance.

Infernal Atrium: Any metal within these
halls will turn to lava in D100 seconds. Also there is lots of fire
and lava in here, and things that set wood on fire, etc.﻿

Rare and delicious honey with mild
pyschedelic properties useful to magic types. Not only are the hives
way up on a mountain (like these:
http://www.espritsciencemetaphysiques.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/1200x6002.jpg)
but the bees are insanely poisonous and aggressive.﻿

Half the dungeon is in the astral
plane, and successfully navigating it requires moving around and
manipulating objects in both planes. Guarded by scissor-happy monks
looking for your astral cord.﻿

For every five feet you walk in this
tunnel, you grow five years younger. The tunnel is 200 feet long.﻿

Your blood is replaced by liquid
copper. You can bleed yourself for pocket change, and it "clots"
faster, but you're being slowly poisoned and are even more conductive
than usual.﻿

The inhabitants of this city recognize
a friendly, normal dog as their king. The politics of the city
revolve around what can plausibly be claimed to be the will of the
dog-king. Attempting to influence the dog-king is a capital offense.﻿

After angering a trickster god, your
party's normal spokesperson is unable to make an utterance without
gravely insulting the listener. There's got to be someway to break
that curse...﻿

Bards﻿.

Flooded chamber filled with breathable
fluid. (Torches don't work here.) You need to read some runes. The
only source of light are some horrible anglerfish fuckers.﻿

King A has hired you to clear the field
of suitors for Princess B, so Prince A can court her exclusively.
You'll be paid handsomely once Princess B and Prince A are married.
Halfway through removing the other suitors you learn Princess B and
Prince A hate each other.﻿

You;re offered a job stealing sentient
inanimate object out of a castle where everything is sentient (and
vocal). Is it kidnapping? How can you avoid raising the alarm when
the damn rugs yell at you and the chairs want to engage in debates?﻿

The map to the treasure of the Sierra
Madres has been found! The finder has escaped from everyone who wants
to kill her/him for it by taking sanctuary inside Doppelganger Abbey.
You do have a flyer with his/her picture, though.﻿

You arrive in a city that doesn't exist
on any map. The language they speak is unrecognizable by even the
most intelligent of scholars. And it turns out this city has a taboo
against nonverbal communication. Even an attempt at charades will
result in horror, distasteful avoidance, or possible imprisonment. ﻿

You arrive in a village you had just
left yesterday. Nobody recognizes you. Everybody speaks a language
you can't understand. The cats look at you knowingly. Every day there
is a 50% chance that one of the PCs faces becomes (1: the opposite
gender, 2: smooth as an egg, 3: elven, 4: orcish, 5: genderless, 6: a
mirror). At night, the moon now has glyphs inscribed on it.﻿

Get a cat down from a tree without
hurting it. It's on a tiny branch, too small to support a man's
weight.﻿

Cast a spell that is only castable when
in freefall. (At least 6 seconds of freefall.)﻿

The Iron Kappa Golem can only
(easily) be defeated by spilling the water in its head, or else
defiling it.

The Holy Paladin can only be defeated
once he (or his armor) is defiled by sin.

Catch the dungeon snipe. It's
extremely alert, runs away faster than you can move, and will not set
off any traps. Other dungeon monsters will not attack it. At least
it's no smarter than a typical bird.﻿

The important magical thing has been
eaten by a regular duck and there are lots of ducks on the lake. You
need it by tomorrow night.﻿

Get the treasure from the Hall of False
Memories in the Dungeon of Circles. Avoid the ghostly horde of the
legion of adventurers past. They run around the dungeon screaming and
waving their swords and axes. As they are phantasms, they don't set
of traps. They don't really notice living creatures, stuck in their
own hell, but their weapons and trampling still cut the chords of
life binding the living to the false illusion of the material world.﻿

This bad buy can only be permanently
killed if its corpse is ENTIRELY eaten within 24 hours of its death.
Most people are unwilling to eat this bad guy.﻿

The thing you need is too heavy to move
by hand, and the tunnels are too cramped to fit a bunch of people
around it.﻿

That bad-good penny can only be gotten
rid of if it is willingly ingested by your nemesis. The bad-good
penny, while possessed, gives immunity to disease, aging, wounds and
death. But every 1d100 days one person close to you dies a horribly
grisly and random death (no save). When there are no people close to
you left, random intelligent creatures in your vicinity start dying
gruesomely. Note that your nemesis counts as someone "close to
you", so they may well die before you can get them to eat the
bad-good penny.﻿

An anti-gorgon must be kidnapped and
returned alive. If she is ever seen, she turns to stone.﻿

The dungeon-pyramid-castle was
literally built around the platinum pyrocophagus of Mu Patuti. The
platinum pyrocophagus is too big to take out through any one of the
tunnels. Cutting it up destroys its magic.﻿

Inside a room, on a table, there is the
thing you want. Anything that enters the room is reduced in size:
-50% for every foot into the room.﻿

You must get Lucifer to wear this
necklace. The necklace will hide its true nature from all of
Lucifer's divinations.﻿

Bad Guy can only be killed by the
Child's sword. Sword can only be wielded by a child (age 11 or
less). There may or may not be a few potions of youth nearby (reduce
your age by 1d20 years).﻿

The demon crown must be brought across
the dungeon to the Slouching Forge. The demon crown possesses anyone
that wears it (no save). The demon crown is capable of teleporting
atop any head within 20'. The person wearing the demon crown has
laser eyes.﻿

The entrance to this dungeon is
underwater, and you must not get any water into the dungeon itself.
The simplest way is just to hire a bunch of villagers to drain the
swamp, but there are many other solutions.﻿

In this dungeon, if two people are ever
in the same room, they begin taking small amounts of psychic damage
each turn. Most of the monsters are immune to psychic damage. One
monster is immune to everything except psychic damage.﻿

One of these villagers is actually a
master swordsman. Everyone in this village is dedicated to hiding
the master swordsman's identity.﻿

You must put the One Ring someplace
where no one will ever find it, despite the fact that the Ring can
gradually call people to it via psychic emanations. There is no
Mount Doom.﻿

An earth demon is feeding on the
villagers through the ground. You need to get all of the villagers
off the ground at the same time (get them all standing on furniture,
or on roofs). Then the demon will emerge from the ground and you can
stab it in the gonads. Evacuating the town also works.﻿

Halls of Elemental Fuckery: In this
subsection of dungeon, air functions like water, water functions like
air, and fire turns into bubbles, and love turns into light. If you
open a door and there's just a wall of water. You go in there and
swim around, and you'll need to breathe from your water flasks. Acts
of love generate light.﻿

All of the surfaces of this dungeon are
electrified metal. Touching them with a conductive material will
shock your balls off. At the back of the dungeon is the switch to
turn this off. Thick leather boots are an obvious requirement.
Leather armor is a good idea if you plan to do any falling down.
Water is impassable. Picking locks in leather gloves is difficult or
impossible. ﻿

Transport a very large number of
balloons.﻿

The bomb that will destroy your
<reward> will blow up in a few minutes. There is no easy way
to defuse it.﻿

Six torches and a chest in the
chronomancer's treasure chamber. Chests exist in 2 dimensions.
Notes/speak with dead, indicate all reality is a shadow of true 6
dimensional space time. Lights in chamber can be adjusted, casting
shadows from the 2d chests that are more real than the chests
themselves. Also unleashes flat vampires. By standing in the chamber
and adjusting the lights, PCs can empower their shadows to fight
back. ﻿

Friendly flesh golem's head is
separated from its body. Body used as invincible weapon by
troglodytes (they keep it on a long adamant chain). After finding
head, pcs can question it to figure out the body's location (the head
feels everything the body does) and re-attach. Head can't control
body unless attached but won't attack anyone holding the head. ﻿

Party enters an area of reality damage.
Any steeds/pack animals become anthropomorphic, can now speak and are
fully sentient. They see the characters as bosom companions and will
not understand why they are shunned by right thinking folk. They want
to fuck normal animals. Capable of reproduction.﻿

Frozen in the ice, is a character's
long dead mother. Holds important (but non vital) key in hands. If
melted, will act as if nothing ever happened, cannot remember how
they got in ice, etc. Will rot into skeleton mum in d12 months.﻿

When a certain magical herb is smoked,
the smoke becomes solid, as long as the PC remains positive. Can be
used to form ladders, keys, weapons... any solid. But stay cool or
you'll make something bad out of smoke. Or it'll vanish when the rest
of the party are 500 feet up.﻿

Paranoid tree requires every animal in
the wood to have an identification numerical (they can all talk).
Badger secret police. Paranoia caused by roots absorbing water from
poison pool beneath tree. Loggers want to cut it down. ﻿

Local tribe has religiously/magically
important feast coming up. The PCs are invited as honored guests,
which means they get the distinction of catching and cooking the main
course - a giant crawfish big enough to stuff the whole village and a
few neighboring ones too. As with their smaller cousins, these guys
dig small tunnels in mud banks and are pretty likely to cause awful
food poisoning if you don't cook them live. And they have big grabby
claws and thick armor.

There is a snake that's seven miles
long. It's breath is psychadelic. There is a powerful medicine in its
small intestine that is only secreted while it is alive. This
medicine is needed to stop a plague. Killing the snake destroys the
medicine, this is known, for the medicine is spiritually linked to
the living essence of the snake that's long seven miles.﻿

A dungeon, ruled by two medusae. One's
gaze turns to stone. One's gaze turns inanimate matter to flesh.
There is a door that disintegrates living cells. Beyond the door,
something sweet. Both medusae have problems. Stone never wants to use
her power. Flesh hates her sister.﻿

Race of cat people primarily recognizes
things based on scent - sight is only good for telling you where
things are, not what they are. Players need to track down a spectral
serial killer that is visually distinct but odorless.

Figure out which of these three manticores is heaviest. They live on three adjacent hills.

The king has hiccups but refuses treatment. Scare him in a way that won't get you killed.

In three days, the God of Meteors will fly 20' over the mountain top going 300 miles an hour. He sometimes slows down to get a better look at interesting or beautiful things. Catch him, because his power is proportionate to his velocity.

A talking frog has taken a vow of silence. You must get it to speak again.

A giant has become possessed by a powerful spirit of evil. The curse is only broken when he laughs, but now he only smiles at tragedy and schadenfreude. (Tickling him is a dangerous, but viable option.)

You learn The Artifact(TM) you need is somewhere in the elven village of Elfville. When you arrive they welcome you graciously and show you their sacred really old ElfTree(c), impervious to all magical harm and the lifeblood of the village. The tree is impressive, but not what you are looking for. After a few days in the village you discover The Artifact(TM) is in the heart of the tree, and in order to retrieve it you need to cut the tree down (not impervious to regular old axes). The elves may kill the human race, starting with you (they'll definitely kill you), if you harm their ElfTree(c).﻿

I'm a long time lurker and I've read too many of your posts. It can't be healthy. But they are inspiring. One thing that I think would be even more inspiring, is knowing some things that have inspired you. (All this inspiration.)

Books? Go old school. Guys like Vance and Lieber were crazy inventive. New stuff like Salvatore soooometimes feels epic but it's all just the same ideas, rehashed.

If you see a comic with a weird cover, buy it. Like, Saga is weird but good.

Blogs: Read Courtney Campbell and the Alexandrian to understand the goals of the game. Read Patrick Stuart, Scrap Princess, and Zak S. for raw creative juices.

But mostly just pay attention. Be a fucking idea pirate: pillage everything you come across. When you watch a movie, keep your eyes open for gameable bits (and maybe keep a notebook at hand. . . I've done that a few times). Same thing when you go for walks. Always keep in mind that D&D doesn't exist in your head, but only at the table. There are many fun ideas in the brain that aren't fun to play at the table. Your ideas must be gamable, not just cool to think about.

Also this thing:http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-to-be-creative-also-blobbins.html

I love the manning armor and the trifling broom, partly because I'd had a similar idea. D&D giants always have sky-high attack bonuses because being huge Just Does That in D&D (superhuman strength and lots of hit dice), but fictional giants tend to be slow and lumbering. You're fucked if they hit you, but they're easy to dodge if you're paying attention.

And it feels like axes and clubs are not a good choice when you're trying to fight something that (relative to you) is the size of a cat and super dodgy. My thought was something like a wire broom, to smash and lacerate in a broad swath, which is pretty close to your trifling broom. Awesome!

(I've also wondered about armor vs. giants. Like, full plate and a stout shield isn't realistically going to help much when you get whacked with a mace the size of a Buick. But if you go down that rabbithole then pretty soon you're bringing back individually indexed to-hit modifiers for every weapon vs. armor pairing, AD&D1e-style, and we're well shut of that.)

You might have figured it out by now, but the easiest way is through either a dice rolling site/app where you can customize your dice, or a random number generator (1-124). You could also use math to figure out how to roll "normal" D&D die to get your desired probability.